Kate Church Workshop

I have just returned home from a fabulous, creative week of sculpting with Kate Church at the Blue Moon Winery in Courtenay, British Columbia.  This time around, instead of staying in a motel, six of us rented a beach house on Kye Bay in Comox.  The house and view were beyond words: (here is a view from our deck)  This area of the Bay is a Heron feeding ground and every day at low tide herons can be seen standing in the low water and sand banks staring intently at the water, searching for food.

A view from our living room up to the second floor.

Every morning our resident bald eagle flew over the water and back up to his perch in the pine tree behind the house overlooking the beach.  Need I say more!  The house was perfect and the views unbelievable (my photo does not begin to capture the magic).

Our gazebo and fire pit where we roasted marshmallows,  hot dogs and made smores!

This class of Kate's involved choosing to make an animal figure (raven, horse, or rabbit) in cloth and then adding clay features using polymer clay.  The animal has a wee clay rider on top.

Here are some candid photos of the week with my fellow artists (10 of us in total) learning from the master, Kate Church:

Preemie clay in translucent, white and ecru ready to condition:

 Some wee heads ready to bake:

 Colouring with Panpastels, a new colouring medium to try:

Kate's demo on making a wee hoof for the horse:

This is Kate's raven and rider in progress.

Kate's horse and rider in progress.

A preview of our dolls in progress:

Three bunnies frolicking and waiting for their riders

Ponies in progress

Stay tuned for more photos and close ups of my pieces as I finish them.

Art Doll Quarterly

I am so excited to share the news.  I was just published in "Art Doll Quarterly", the May/June/July 2016 issue.  My doll "Little Red Riding Hood" was chosen and can be found on page 103 of the "show and tell" section of this great magazine.

The story of how Little Red became  "Big Red", the town mayor is included in the article!

Art Doll Quarterly is a premiere magazine for art doll enthusiasts and makers.  It is chock full of inspirational articles and photos of dolls from artists from all over the world.  I would encourage everyone to have a look at this magazine if you have not done so previously.

Analogous Colour Challenge Doll

Our doll club, the Cloth-a-Dollics will reveal the dolls from our recent challenge at the Victoria Quilter's Show this coming May at the Pearkes Arena in Saanich:

As always our Quilt Show Challenge organizer, the one woman dynamo, Charlotte, has arranged for the display and has given us a challenge doll to make that is in concert with the Quilters' challenge:

Make a doll using at least 3 analogous colours plus any skin tone fabric.  The doll must have some sense of motion.

I had to look up the definition for analogous colours:

I decided to use the fabrics in my stash, so I chose the following combination:

Blue-Green/Blue/Blue-Violet/Violet!  (that is four analogous colours and I was set!

I love Alice in Wonderland, as you may already know, so I chose to make the Mad Hatter using Johnny Dep's outfit as the starting point but in a different colour scheme.

I like the way he turned out! Here are his pants and home-made shoes using my colour scheme:

Here is the famous hat with violet and blues: I added buttons and hand-crocheted flowers for interest and texture:

Now for his face:

I just had to keep the orange hair as I had the perfect tibetan lamb wig for him and the orange compliments the purple (hair is exempt from the colour scheme). Notice his funky feather eyelashes in the green.

Now for the rest of the doll (he sits about 16" tall on his wicker chair.  I just had to use my sweater pieces in the colour scheme to give him a cuddle with his Chesire cat:

He is holding a porcelain tea mug.

The Chesire cat is made with a wool sweater and felt.

I am quite happy with this funky Mad Hatter and I hope that everyone enjoys him.  Oh yes, the "Motion" aspect is the scarf fluttering in the wind: I used a light layering of glue to make the silk scarf stand straight out.

If you are in the Victoria area, please visit the Quilt show and see our club's dolls.  There will be many vendors selling fabrics, trims, wool felt and patterns at the show as well. (May 6, 7, and 8 at Pearkes Arena in Saanich)

My Felt Doll

A month or so ago, I purchased a new book called "My Felt Doll" by Shelly Down. (check out her site on easy called Gingermelon)  I loved the book so much that I purchased it twice by mistake!  No problem though, as my sister in Toronto wanted a copy to make these dolls with our 5 nieces (aged 4 through 12 years old).

While in Toronto visiting with my family I had fun making some of the dolls from the book:

The Beach Babe

The Traveller

The School Girl

Bedtime

Little Fairy

Ballerina with knitted sweater

I made her a felt bunny as well.

While in Toronto, I had fun helping my nieces make a felt doll of their own.  I used acrylic felt for their dolls and buttons for eyes.  They chose the pattern they wanted and I helped them cut out the pattern and make it.  We worked on the dolls two Sunday afternoons until they were done.

Here are three of the dolls:

Girl's Night Out (made by Madison, aged 7)

Mermaid and Puppy (puppy designed by my 10 year old niece!)

My niece wanted to make a dog, not a doll! (made by Michaela, aged 10)

Mermaid with button eyes and embellished tail. (made by Emma with help from me and mom)

My last two nieces also made dolls but they left before I had a chance to take photos!

I would recommend the book to all who love hand sewing with felt.  The patterns are excellent and the dolls are adorable!

Steampunk Crows

As I promised a while ago, I have finished two more steampunk crows.  This time I made them a touch larger as they stand about 12" when finished on their stands.

I used a lovely black Italian wool (given to me by a lovely lady) for their bodies and some gray with a black lace overlay for their wings.  I think they turned out great.  As always, I used the Frowning Francis pattern as a template (a great resource that you can find on Dealmakers Journey site).  I also added some embroidery on his body and tail using the feather stitch and the fly stitch in grass and dark blue.

The first crow, I named "A Balanced Life" after the song "Bird on a Wire" as sung by L. Cohen:


                   Like a bird on a wire,... I have tried, in my way, to be free"

The next crow I used the same fabric but I found a great old hole puncher that I used for his stand.  The arms of the hole punch look like bird legs.
Here is "Luck be a Lady":

The two crows bid you farewell and may luck be on your side in a balanced, happy life!